Was there abortion in 1950’s Ireland?

A few weeks ago, I had a fascinating conversation with an aunt of mine. She is the only girl in a family of strapping big brothers, so when she told me that she’d had a sister who had died in infancy, I found it really sad. As it turned out, this was the tip of the narrative iceberg. Her own mother is an unequivocal feminist and rabid socialist, who was best pals with Luke Kelly and always involved in politics. Apart from the infant daughter who died, she had another child with severe physical disabilities who passed away. If all of this wasn’t enough to be getting on with, her husband was frequently away in England working to try and make ends meet. Times were hard.

As my aunt and I strolled along in the summer sun, she literally stopped me in my tracks with the next part of the story. Her mother was well into her forties and began complaining of stomach pains. In the absence of periods and feeling off colour, she took herself off to the hospital. Eventually a doctor examined her, and with little warning, pronounced her pregnant (which had happened during a home visit from her husband). Lying in the bed, distraught, Mrs. X blurted out “Doctor, I simply CANNOT have any more babies, I can’t”, before bursting into tears. She opened up to the doctor about the pain of losing her two dead children and he decided that he would do some further tests. She was kept in for a couple of days and returned home soon after. In the weeks that followed, it was clear she was no longer pregnant.

When I quizzed my aunt about this – was the doctor wrong in his diagnosis of pregnancy? Was it just the menopause playing havoc with her body? – she insisted that an unspoken understanding had passed between her mother and the doctor, who took it upon himself to assist in ending her pregnancy. This was a Dublin hospital in the early 1950s in De Valera’s Catholic-gripped Ireland. How could this be? When I asked her if she thought it was an abortion, she shrugged and simply answered, “Maybe, who knows?”. But it was certainly something that neither doctor or patient even acknowledged to each other, let alone spoken of to someone else.

Unlike the relative Penny referred to in the comments of this post, Mrs. X seems to have been given a choice – albeit a taboo and illegal one – about her reproductive destiny.

Hi Tom, I was blown away by it, given when how long ago it happened, it’s staggering. It beggers belief that it even went on, and I would love to know if this happened to many women. And it certainly wasn’t anything to do with having wealth…

My question is probably rhetorical and I meant it in terms of hospital abortions involving doctors rather than women like Mamie. I’d never heard of her, so thanks a million for the heads-up, she sounds like a fascinating character.

Wow, what a fascinating story. I wonder how commonplace that sort of thing was? I never had any doubt that abortions took place in Ireland of the ’50s, of course, but I would always have assumed they were the dangerous, unprofessional, bottle of gin and a coat hanger variety. Perhaps before abortion was openly discussed, doctors were more likely to perform one if a woman begged for help? I’ve never heard of any doctor offering to do one in more recent times, or even offering any information on arranging one elsewhere, even in more than one case where the women discovered the babies had anencephaly and ended up going to the UK for abortions. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, of course.

I recently read Persephone’s reissue of Penelope Mortimer’s fantastic but bleak 1950s novel Daddy’s Gone a Hunting, in which a middle class woman arranges an abortion for her daughter; although that was pre-the 1967 abortion act, it seemed that there were plenty of doctors and clinics in the UK who would do it semi-secretly, at great expense (poor women presumably went to the likes of Vera Drake). From this and other writing from the time, though, it looks like they treated the women pretty horribly, making them feel like stupid sluts.

I have no doubt that there were doctors compassionate enough to help women terminate an unwanted pregnancy before the whole topic became politicized by the fuck nuts who insist that life begins at conception. It’s too much of a risk for any of them to do it now.

Wow, that’s some tale Molly. Wouldn’t really want to jump into the wole ‘when does life begin’ debate, not least because I’ve never been pregnant. I like the fact that it’s a grey issue – people can believe what they need to in accordance to their own values. I do know women who have had terminations, and who have made the ordeal less horrible by convincing themselves that they were merely getting rid of ‘some cells’.

I’m sure people are going to rip my throat out for even committing a remark remark to print, but it’s their words, not mine. Alls I know is that this sort of logic made having a termination a lot easier for some women I know.

That’s a really interesting story your aunt has to tell Molly. It reminds me of all the unknown stories that are stacked away behind the faces of older generations.

The question of where life begins – now that’s a hot potato that people tend to differ on, usually based on their personal beliefs. I’m a science-based gal myself, so I let biology guide me on these issues.

Perhaps before abortion was openly discussed, doctors were more likely to perform one if a woman begged for help?

Perhaps it could be speculated that doctors were more likely to perform one if the a woman begged for help, without requesting an abortion – because if a woman knowingly procures one, the Offences Against The Person Act 1861 holds that she goes to jail for life if she’s found guilty. This is still in force today.

If this was done by the doctor, they would only be risking themselves legally and ethically.